[Freeciv-Dev] Re: two new difficulty levels

[Daniel Sjölie <deepone@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 2002-02-25 12:33:10, Per I. Mathisen wrote:
> On Mon, 25 Feb 2002, Daniel Sjölie wrote:
> > I think it would be a good idea to put this in separate (a) variable(s)
> > though... Compare with commercial strategy games - you shouldn't have 10
> > levels of dificulty but a bunch of difficulty related variables you can
> > all tune independently and some presets for these for a few predefined
> > difficulties... This might be somewhat less userfriendly when using the
> > commandline server but we should have a gui for this for those who
> > prefer userfriendliness anyway...
> 
> I disagree. If we make it a server var, it will be lost in the jungle of
> server vars and few will know about it. This is supposed to fix the
> TODO/FAQ that the freeciv AI is too easy.
> 
> I think a single variable for difficulty is a good idea, because it
> presents the user with a simple choice. New users (or actually most users)
> do not want to fiddle with a few dozen server vars just to make games more
> or less difficult. They want to be able to say (if to none else then to
> themselves): "I beat 4 AIs on 'harder'!", not "I beat 4 AIs with
> servervars a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i!".

This is what I was talking about when I said "This might be somewhat
less userfriendly when using the commandline server but we should have
a gui for this for those who prefer userfriendliness anyway"...

I really think new users shouldn't be exposed to the commandline
server at all...

If necessary, wouldn't it be possible to make a command that issued two
other commands? (Or variables who set other variables?) So that when
you set difficulty to tough you actually set the ai to hard and set some
ais_allied variable...

In short, if you agree a variable of its own is the right thing to do
the usability argument is not good enough...

Does the difficulty change anything but the actual AI today? If not I
don't think we should mix more stuff into the same variable...

In addition, there are several other variables that would be nice to
have different presets for different difficulties for...

What about having difficulty commands that actually load files (standard
files included with freeciv) with settings for relevant server
variables?

/Daniel

-- 
Now take a deep breath, smile and don't take life so seriously... :)